I met fellow writer Sioban Timmer on Monday and of course, we chatted and laughed and swapped stories in our conversation she gave me this gem of a phrase
‘ While you are writing it, it’s your book, wonderful, original, valuable, then you publish it and to the rest of the world it’s just a bag of frozen peas.’
I can hear the gasps, almost see the shudders – ‘what my beautiful book?’
Yes, the harsh reality – you have to sell your book anyway that you can.
If you don’t market yourself these days, you are nowhere.
Why should this statement surprise us?
Did Charles Dickens market himself? He sure as hell did. He wrote his stories as instalments and left each chapter with a cliff hanger so that readers would buy the next instalment.
Did Samuel Johnston market himself? He had to, his work was sold by subscription. Who would buy his work if they did not know him?
Did Shakespeare market his work? Some of the time he wrote for patrons, and he needed to attract them, so he must have done. As a playwright, he had to keep the audience enthralled-so that they would return. The theatre would have had handbills and poster advertising each new play.
Nowadays some writers take a high-minded attitude to marketing as if it were inherently wrong. The big publishers don’t play it that way though, they spend up big and take every opportunity to promote their writers. They get them onto Morning TV, Australian Story and in women’s magazines and send out tons Of ARC’s( Advance Reader Copies).
In a word these days and maybe always hype is money. How can you buy something if you don’t know it exists?
We can be precious and claim that our work is misunderstood, is only for a select few, or too complex. And maybe that it is true for some of us. But wouldn’t you love to have a bestseller and enjoy the hype?
By the way, if you have read Fire & Ice could you please post an honest review on Amazon( if you bought it there) or Good reads or even send my publisher Daisy Lane or me a copy of your review. It doesn’t have to be long,I liked it’ is fine.
Sonia Bellhouse- Author. 